Some thoughts on Creative Entrepreneurship…

I live in the beautiful city of Athens, Greece and I am a business coach for creative entrepreneurs.

Also, I like to consider myself an artist, in the sense that when I create my art, it feels like it is the only work I should been doing for the rest of my life.

However, feeling good is not enough…

First, you also have to make a living somehow, -and boy, isn’t making a living out of our art, a dream so many people have, including myself!

Second, it’s not enough to just feel good yourself, you have to make other people feel good too, you have to give something back to the world, even if this is through your art and your creations.

I’ve worked for many years in large multinational corporations, in senior management positions, before I decided that I’ve had enough and that it was about time to get out there and do something on my own (I should have done it sooner, but that’s another story…).

Having had the experience of being an employee (working for someone else), a free-lancer (working just for me) and an entrepreneur (working for me, but at the same time , giving something back to the world, adding value even in the slightest way), I have become a very strong advocate of creative entrepreneurship.

So, my point here is that you have to combine all of the above: use your creative mind to create art and use your business mind to find a way to make a profit out of your creations. You see, my experience so far, has taught me that when we use BOTH our creative skills and our entrepreneurial skills, both the right and the left sides of our brain, success is inevitable!

I firmly believe that we are entering into a New Age of Work, where creative entrepreneurship will not just be an antidote to unemployment and a powerful driver of growth for local -and even- global economy. It will also be a key element for fully utilising our capabilities, for nurturing life skills, for personal development and fullfilment and for expressing our creativity, something very difficult to do in its entirety, when we work for someone else.

Besides, things are not like they used to be. The business world is changing. Over the next years, global economic and technological pressures will have a major impact on the ways we work –in fact they’ve already started. The days are gone when just about anyone could step into a lifetime job with regular pay raises, promotions and a good pension at retirement. The world and our lives will be in costant flux. We have to realize that, anticipate the changes to come and adapt accordingly. In this new era of work, self-reliance and self-improvement will be the new defining concepts.

My vision is to raise awareness on the changing nature of work and the new market realities and on the need to take personal responsibility for our work life and start generating opportunities for ourselves. Exploiting our innate creativity, utilising our talents and capabilities and adopting an entrepreneurial attitude -and action!- is the way to go about it.

“The world rewards only those of us who catch on to what’s happening, and who invest our energy in finding and seizing the opportunities brought about by change. Many priceless opportunities await those of us that play by the new rules, position ourselves right, and take personal responsibility for our future.”

-Price Prichett, “New Work Habits”

One such area of opportunity is art. Our art. Be that music, crafts, writing, painting, illustrating, sculpting, upcycling, microneedling, designing new products across all categories, anything that our creativity, our work and our commitment brings to life. And not just art for the sake of it, but as a means to support us, to become our main source of income. There are so many opportunities out there to sell your art and make a living out of it. You just have to know how to best take advantage of them.

This is what we do at Creative Biz Lab. (http://www.creativebizlab.com: soon to be translated in english). We help artists make a living out of selling their art.